Leo Laporte
The Tech Guy
2–5p ET Sat & Sun
- Home
- Saturday Show
- Sunday Show
- Past Shows
- Audio Archives
- Stations
- Chat
- Watch Live
- Forums
- Tips
- FAQ
- Glossary
- Contact Leo
Sponsors
Leo Links
 |
For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
|
|
Saturday December 20, 2008
Show Audio
|
Edited Audio | |
Tech News
Teacher confiscates Linux disks in Texas
A teacher creates a furor as she and proclaims that offering an alternative to Windows doesn’t help them. Leo thinks that the teacher’s ignorance of what Linux can do caused the uproar.
School districts spend millions on Windows products, when open source, and free, alternatives are readily available. Wouldn’t it be better to spend that money on better things?
Guests
Lotay Yang, Founder of BlackCardCircle.com. This is a social website for self made millionaires. Think of it as Facebook for rich people. Alpha. Elite members get secret access to the social network of people of similar influence.
Leo wonders if he’s concerned over conspiracy theorists who will try to get in. Lotay says that they do internet background checks to make sure people who apply are who they say they are.
GPS price drops mean great Christmas gifts
Leo says that really good, functional, GPS devices are now under $100 and that makes for a really great Christmas gifts. They can have celebrity generated voices in TomToms, for instance, and you can make your own voice messages as well. How much fun is that.
A digital camera is also a great gift for those looking to buy a better gift, rather than multiple ones.
Scott Wilkinson, Ultimate AV Magazine
Looking back at 2008 in Home Theater. Leo says it was a very good year in Home Theater. Big Screen TVs were a top seller on Black Friday due to falling prices. Big Screens for around $1,000, Blu-ray for around $200. But even though it was a banner year, the future looks a bit bleak.
Another major story of 2008 was HDDVD tossing in the towel in it’s war against Blu-ray. But was it a Pyrrhic victory? Blu-ray hasn’t really caught on just yet due to the cost and competition from streaming movies. There are some Blu-ray players, like one from LG, can stream movies online as well as play DVDs. HD Streaming should start shortly after the New Year.
But the irony is that DVD refused to die as a result of slow Blu-ray sales. Scott says that’s because the perception is that DVDs are “good enough.” But once you see HD on Blu-ray, the difference is clear. Which leads to the notion of “are we asking too much for Blu-ray adoption?” Scott says yes. Blu-ray is right on same track of adoption as regular DVD players did over VHS.
LCD and Plasma took over while rear projection has continued to fade away. There are only two companies left who are making them and that’s only for a short time. Which is a shame because RPTVs give users the most bang for the buck.
How’s pay per view doing? Scott says the impression is that Pay per View is doing very well. $5.00 for viewing. Great for movies you only want to see once. But Scott also says that people really like to collect things, and as such, DVDs are very popular and that may also contribute to the slowness of Blu-ray sales. People don’t want to buy their favorite movies all over again.
Next week - the look ahead to 2009!
Tom Hogerty, Adobe - Talking about Adobe Lightroom 2.2
Leo wants to talk about software that will help you get the most out of your picture taking. Adobe Light Room is a fantastic program which can take photos and make them even better. How is Light Room different from Photoshop? Photoshop is more a designer program, where is Light Room is a photo utility for photographers.
Leo likes to use it to manage his photos, choose the best, and improve on those. Burn, Dodge, changing the light balance, red eye removal, getting contrast right. All done easily in Light Room. And the best part is, for similar photos you can select the changes on one picture and apply them to others taken in similar conditions. Cool!
Leo says it’s simple, but deep in capability. It’s easy to learn, too. Leo likes the presets which you can apply right out of the box. It’s the number on photo management utility Leo uses for Photography. Cost is $299.
Hour 1
Q Betty, Los Angeles, CA - AOL retention issues
Betty says that AOL wouldn’t let her cancel and is charging her $10 a month for high speed access. Leo says cancel it. AOL has retention experts who will do just about anything to keep your membership, even scare you.
Leo says you can have a free AOL account through AOL.COM.
She also has sound issues with her PC. Leo says there’s a lot of issues that can affect your PCs audio performance. First point of failure could be the speakers. The cable could be faulty or even unplugged. First thing is to take a pair of headphones and plug into the headphone jack on your sound card. If you can hear it, then you have isolated the problem to your speakers.
Another possibility is that the sound is muted. If there’s an speaker icon in the lower r/h corner of your screen, right click on it and you’ll see if it’s muted. Click on it and it should be re-enabled.
Q Curtis, Palo Alto, CA - Slow boot up
Curtis says that his PC takes up to 15 minutes to boot up. Leo says that there’s a free one called AUTORUNS by Microsoft. It’s like MSConfig on steroids. Leo also says Curtis should look at his services to see what’s going on in the background. Trial and error on turning things off may help to speed up the boot process. Check out BlackViper.com to see a list of services you don’t need in Vista. Another thing is that Vista doesn’t completely boot up when it shows up the desktop. You can still work while it continues to boot up. Another possibility is that Curtis’ hard drive is failing. Checking it out with SpinRite will verify if any bad sectors are messing with the boot up.
Hour 2
Q Doug, Los Angeles, CA - Ripping his home movies to DVD
Doug wants to take his home movies and rip them to his iMac to edit. What he’s running into, is that when he records to the DVDR on his Sony and finalized it, it can’t be read on his Mac when trying to import to iMovie.
Leo says he can use Handbrake to rip it to his MAC in MPEG4. Then open them in iMovie. Another idea is Mac The Ripper (free) which will copy his DVD to the desktop. Then, he’ll need to convert the files into something iMovie will read.
In the future, Leo recommends bypassing the DVD burner and capture the video tapes directly into iMovie using ElGato, a bridge which will convert the analog signal to a digital one.
Q Tony, Redondo Beach, CA - can’t read his photos
Tony’s computer can’t read his flash card after he’s taken some pictures with his Canon 30D. It can play on his wife’s but not his. Leo wonders if other cards can be played. Make sure you have the latest firmware (1.0.6) for your camera. Leo suspects there’s something wrong with the camera and hopefully, the update will solve it.
Q Alec, Hadenford, PA - Adobe Premiere Elements vs. Final Cut Express
If you have Windows, Adobe Premiere Elements, is a definite plus. For Mac, Final Cut Express is great, but Final Cut Studio is the King of the Hill. If you want a career as a film editor, Leo says that Final Cut Express is an advantage towards transitioning to the Studio version.
Alec also wants to know what video card for gaming for around $70. Leo also recommends the N’Vidia GeForce 8800 or 8600 to upgrade for gaming.
Q Patrick, Ontario, CAN - Sound sync issues on HDTV
Patrick uses an LG 32″ HDTV with a cable DVR and he’s getting sync problems. Leo says the Cable DVR is causing the trouble. Most people just live with it, but it drives Leo nuts. Sometimes it helps to reset it, but Leo says you should get the Cable company to give Patrick a new one. Another option is to use an HDMI connection which can help.
Q Angela, Los Angeles, CA - Video streaming issues
Angela has been watching streaming video on such sites as ABC.com. She has streaming problems and Leo says that it’s more likely a problem with ABCs streaming. It may be that the connection to another streaming site is better. ABC uses Windows Media Player to play it’s files and the other site probably uses Flash. Can she use Active X safely? Leo says sure, turn up your security first. You can add ABC.Com to it’s trusted sites lists and then you can install ActiveX and ABCs Move player. That may help. If not, you’re better sticking with streaming from a flash player.
And it can also be that if her computer is really old, you can have trouble with the video stream. Nothing an upgrade to a new computer won’t hurt.
Hour 3
Q David, Halifax, Nova Scotia - Driving traffic to his website.
Leo says there’s no real magic bullet. Google says good content is the main way. He has a website where he talks about new gadgets available on Amazon. And using Blogspot (google’s own blog site) is a great idea because they definitely index their own sites. It’s also easier to drive traffic to a site if it’s more focused and narrow. David does this by doing a Gadget Blog.
Another great way is to get other sites to link to you. But avoid search engine optimization (SEO) companies. Google hates them and it will hurt you. Just do a link exchange or write a review (content) that is so good, that people link to you. And using headlines that grab an audience will catch people’s attention (study how Mike Arrington does this on Tech Crunch). And remember that even negative publicity of your site is good for getting noticed. Add to community. Do comments on other sites. Link to other’s blogs. Get involved. Design wise, put more meta tags in the header. Google indexes the first 1500 characters of your blog. Use em.
And very important … post regularly, and OFTEN. Content is king and regular content will not only get people to your site, but keep them coming.
Q LaDeen, Tustin, CA - Treo Pro coming out soon?
LaDeen wants to know what’s up with the Palm Treo Pro? She keeps hearing it’s coming out soon, but where is it? Leo says that the process right now is to get carriers to use it. But from Leo hears, it doesn’t get very good reviews. Palm has moved to the Windows Mobile platform and it has cost them. BlackBerry and Apple are both just eating Palm’s lunch competitively.
Leo says could probably buy it now unsubsidized, but you’d be paying full price and couldn’t use it on your existing carrier. The Pro is loaded though. WiFi, GPS, special shortcuts to make Windows Mobile easier to use. Leo advises to wait until it comes out with Sprint and then try before you buy.
Q Rick, Corona, CA - Combining internet connections to increase bandwidth
Rick wants to know if he can use multiple internet connections in concert to improve his bandwidth. Leo says not really. You can dedicate up for one, down with another. So, if you’re doing say, Skype and surfing, you won’t lose the connection. But outside of that, you can’t combine to make one master pipe.
Q Jeff, Vancouver, BC - Thoughts on Windows 7
Windows 7 is coming out sometime next year. What does Leo think? Leo says it’s very impressive. A change in thinking with it allows it to be “componentized,” where new features will be sent out as they’re done. But the core OS is ready right now. User access control has been toned down, the system tray is gone. Leo says the OS is very mature now and are now just cleaning the code, adding “fins,” and making them more reliable. The early buzz is that Windows 7 does that, and more.
